As Jonathan Adler noted, Ninth Circuit judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain announced on Monday that he will take senior status at the end of this year. Judge O’Scannlain’s news came on the 30th anniversary of his appointment by President Reagan.

I can’t pay Judge O’Scannlain due tribute in this short post, but I do want to highlight that he has been a great and courageous judge and a powerful voice of sanity and clarity on the often-muddled court on which he serves. A San Francisco Daily Journal article yesterday (not available online), in calling him the “most prominent conservative voice” on the Ninth Circuit, cited his remarkable record in calling the Supreme Court’s attention to his colleagues’ acts of lawlessness:

His impassioned dissents have regularly drawn the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court, which continues to frequently reverse the 9th Circuit. From 2006 to 2010, the high court reversed 13 out of 13 cases in which O’Scannlain wrote or joined a dissent.

David Lat, who clerked for Judge O’Scannlain, has penned a fine homage to him, and more are surely in the works.